[wp-hackers] Change in plugin Options page handling

[Owen Winkler]

The patch is working, but I did have to change all of the instances of 
__FILE__ to basename(file).  I shouldn't have to do this...

Ah.  Windows uses backslashes in paths.

The attached diff is Ryan's menu changes plus a fix for plugin_basename.

I'm going to make a policy suggestion below about using more than one 
submenu under Options or Manage, which is still not possible. 
Otherwise, very cool.


Jamie Talbot wrote:
> At the moment there is an add_management_page and an add_options_page
> function, but no add_plugins_page function, which could be an
> indication?  Did I just answer my own question?

I think we should standardize on one place or another.  Here are my 
thoughts:

Options: Displays plugin options that only administrators should view. 
The "how" of data management.

Manage: Displays management controls for finite tasks like links, posts, 
images, etc.  The "what" of data management.

Dashboard: Displays general overview/summary/status information, but 
offers no options or ways to alter data.

Plugins: Displays controls dealing with plugin management, not 
configuration options for a plugin itself.

Presentation: Displays controls for manipulation of theme/style files.

Links: Can you even put a submenu here?  Hmm.  This crazy menu should be 
a submenu of Manage, in my opinion, but I suppose that you might want to 
do more with links than just make a blogroll.

Write: Displays tools for writing content onto the site.  Might contain 
a plugin to modify sidebar configuration.  (Ooh, cool- use a plugin to 
dynamically position your sidebar sections from the admin panel!)

Users: Displays controls for user management.  A plugin that lets you 
directly select a user level via a dropdown might go here.

New top-level menus should only be used for adding brand new features to 
WordPress; features that are not innate.  Gallery management.  Database 
administration on a phpMyAdmin level.  Stuff that would be packed too 
tightly into a single submenu.  Just because you're not a GUI wizard 
doesn't mean you can't ask how to crap your features comfortably into a 
single well-crafted page.

If you would need two submenus under a single top-level menu (which you 
can't do), you might be a candidate for a new top-level menu.

Feel free to completely disagree with the above.  Otherwise, it might be 
nice to document this in Codex.

Owen



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